In a New York Press review of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which wasn’t as well received as Illuminated), Harry Siegel lynched Foer for being, as he described it, “willfully young.” Krauss’s debut, Man Walks Into a Room, was published in 2002 as well, and by the time her second novel, The History of Love, came out in 2005, at the very same time as Foer’s Extremely Loud, the backlash to the backlash had become even more meta. Both books featured similar plots and books-within-a-book; MediaBistro.com even asked whether the couple had planned it as “a cute postmodern joke” between themselves. It seemed like some kind of pre-packaged setup and punch line for critics to tap into as they saw fit.

Winston, who acquired the paperback reprint rights to Illuminated, says she fell in love with Illuminated, and not because of Foer’s looks. However, Winston notes that it isn’t enough these days for something to just work on the page. “If you find out, say, from the agent, that the person is also extremely attractive and really young . . . I don’t think the publishing community is idiotic. You think, ‘Oh, that’s a bonus.’ But you’re not going to not publish the book if that’s not the case.” Literary Darwinism is full of mixed messages like these.

Sometimes, though, it’s about being at the right place at the right time. Nell Freudenberger, 31, had a particularly auspicious introduction. While toiling as an editorial assistant for the New Yorker, fiction editor Bill Buford discovered she wrote short stories, and published one of them in the magazine’s 2001 Summer Fiction issue. Every writer featured in that issue was photographed, but Freudenberger’s picture was especially flattering. Given that she is naturally stunning, this isn’t a difficult feat. So there she was, posed on top of a shiny coverlet on a bed in her apartment, appearing equal parts serious and sensual with her slender figure, large eyes, and pert nose. The debate began over her story: was it really good enough for the New Yorker? Was it included because of her insider status? Then, quickly, the topic switched to Freudenberger’s looks. Did her heavy eyelashes and searching expression sell her piece?

After her story ran, Freudenberger published her first collection, Lucky Girls, which received a favorable reception and was reviewed in publications ranging from Vogue to The New York Times Book Review. In her particularly snide Salon piece, Curtis Sittenfeld, an Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate and the author of Prep, felt it her duty to take Freudenberger to task. Sittenfeld’s review, entitled “Too Young, Too Pretty, Too Successful,” doled out a series of viciously back-handed compliments to pre-empt her opinion about the book — which she admitted to liking, just not “loving.” “It would be overstating it, but not by much, to say that you could see down her shirt,” Sittenfeld declared of the New Yorker photograph, and admitted to hating Freudenberger for what she stood for. She then sarcastically derided Freudenberger’s decision to turn down a reported $500,000 offered during a bidding war for a reported $100,000 from Ecco, a HarperCollins imprint: “Meaning she was, like, virtuous and un-greedy on top of everything else — it was sickening!”

From the ashes Honest, perceptive, and keenly felt, The Good Life — the story of two couples’ furtive, hesitant stabs at happiness in the brave and fearful new world of post-9/11 New York — is McInerney’s most mature and affecting book yet.

Young Adulteration In the late 1980s, when I was nine or 10, my mom bought me my own copy of A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Our Children Need To Know .

The hipster Harry Potter The inside flap of Wildwood — the new young-adult fantasy novel by Decemberist Colin Meloy — claims that the book is for ages nine and up.

The trouble with the truth I think I deserve considerable credit for not comparing Governor John Baldacci’s state-of-the-state address to the kind of memoir that wins an endorsement from Oprah’s book club.

Local color Bill Flanagan certainly had a lot of himself and Rhode Island to bring to his second novel.

Bookman Larry McMurtry, the best I can tell, remains the only man to have both won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction and written an Academy Award–winning screenplay.

My Name is Bruce Chisel-profiled B-movie icon Bruce Campbell struck gold not with any particular role but by detailing his career ups and downs in a very funny memoir, If Chins Could Kill .

Empty pantsuit I have a terrible confession to make: I couldn’t get through either of the two new biographical tomes about Hillary Clinton.

Bookie joint Vendela Vida drank reindeer blood in the living room of a Sami healer on her third trip to Lapland.

YO, JONNY! THE LOVE SONG OF JONNY VALENTINE | February 05, 2013 Sometime after becoming a YouTube megastar and crashing into the cult of personality that has metastasized in contemporary society, Teddy Wayne's 11-year-old bubblegum idol Jonny Valentine is hanging out in his dressing room getting a blow job from a girl who doesn't even like his music.

LENA DUNHAM AND HBO GET IT RIGHT | April 13, 2012 When a new television show chronicling the lives of young women arrives, it tends to come packaged with the promise that it will expertly define them, both as a generation and a gender.

EUGENIDES'S UPDATED AUSTEN | October 12, 2011 For his long-awaited third novel, Jeffrey Eugenides goes back to look at love in the '80s — and apparently decides that it's a lot like love in the early 19th century.

REVIEW: RINGER | September 08, 2011 Sixty seconds into the CW's new psychological thriller Ringer, star Sarah Michelle Gellar is seen running from a masked attacker in the darkness.

LOVE'S LEXICOGRAPHER | February 10, 2011 As the editorial director at Scholastic, David Levithan is surrounded by emotional stories about adolescents. Being overexposed to such hyperbolic feelings about feelings could easily turn a writer off pursuing such ventures himself — despite the secrets he may have picked up along the way.